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Lisa Ling: How My Childhood Affected Who I Became as an Adult

My childhood was definitely not perfect. My parents basically had an arranged marriage that should never have been, and they got divorced when I was seven years old and my sister, Laura, was four.

Lisa, right, with her sister, Laura

When you’re ethnic and your parents divorce, it adds a whole new layer of challenge to your life because you already feel like an outsider. We also didn’t have much money—my dad was always working to put food on the table, so I became the lady of the house even though I was still a child myself. Sometimes I was bitter, but that emptiness and those challenges propelled me to be ambitious. I became financially independent at 17, started working on TV at 18, and bought my own house at 24. Ever since, I’ve been traveling around the world, telling stories as a correspondent.

Now, at last, I can appreciate the woman my childhood experiences created: me.

Lisa Ling is the host of Our America with Lisa Ling on the Oprah Winfrey Network.